Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Glendale Week 37 *April 29, 2014

Good afternoon!Another six weeks has gone by and so did the transfer. I was fortunateenough to stay in my area and keep my amazing companion Elder TuckerThompson. I don't know if there is something more for me to learn orif Heavenly Father heard my prayers haha. The time so far that I havespent with a Elder Thompson has been a blast. He has a great outlookon the work and a quirkiness about him that I'm never going to find insome one else. I love it. He makes everyday an adventure. We have beentold that we fight like an old married couple haha. I want to thankMr. And Mrs. Thompson for raising such a great son. He truly carries your family's name well. He has helped me keep going even when the future didn't seem so bright. He is a great friend and an amazing representative of Jesus Christ. I'm just going to come right out and say it. The sunburst ward isamazing. Our teaching pool has been dwindling and we have had a hardtime finding people but the ward has been so helpful in letting usinto their homes to teach them. We have been working hard with theauxiliary leaders to bless the lives of those that have been on theirminds throughout the weeks. They know their members a lot better thenwe ever will. Bishop Heid is very missionary minded so that helps aton. He has never given up on us and it makes us want to keep pushingand working our hardest. I really love it when the wards want to helpus reach our goals.We have been doing a lot of service lately which isn't too badconsidering that the heat of the Arizona summer has not hit us. Ask meabout that in about two months. It will be a different story alltogether. It still amazes me that when we ask people to help them theyare so shocked that we are serious. They just think that we are makinga joke or something. I don't know. But then when they actually say okto having us help and we get right to it, everything goes great. Youwould be so shocked to see how many people say no just because we areLDS. Ugh that has to be the most frustrating thing. It's like "thisjob will be ten times easier if you just let us help!" But no. Hahatoo bad for them I guess. At least we tried right?One of the things that I have been studying this week is the processof conversion. In the church we say that we have been converted.Past tense. But what I have found is that conversion is not a one timedeal. We do not have a single event that completely changes our form,character or functions. In the Book of Mormon we can find that manypeople who saw angels multiple times were not converted to the gospel.I think the best story of conversion is Alma the younger. Even thoughhe saw the angel he didn't just stop what he was doing and walk thestraight and narrow. He had to be struck dumb and go through muchrepentance to be born again of God. Even after this event he had somuch fixing that he needed to do because of his past choices. He hadtaken a major step in his conversion process but throughout his wholelife he had to keep working at it. I think that many of us are on ourway in this conversion process but we forget to keep taking the stepsforward. We become comfortable where we are. We think this is enough.I promise you that we will never reach where we need to be in this lifealone. We must always seek God's help in seeing the next thing for usto do. We have to choose to see God's hand in our lives. We can askand ask but if we are not looking with the right intent we will beblind. Keep moving forward in faith. Never give up. I promise there islight and something of worth at the end of the struggle.Thank you to everyone that has been a great example to me. I have somany wonderful friends and family members that have shown me what itmeans to be a giving person. My mother has been working so hard to bea missionary and she is seeing the success and the struggles of that.I am so proud of her. My dad's father recently passed away so ifany of you see my dad or any member of my family please give them abig hug from me. I would really appreciate it. Love you guys!Until next week,Elder Cole Safford